Micron announces 256GB solid-state drive

Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 11:09
Technology
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Micron Technology has announced that it will launch its 256GB solid-state drive early next year while working with Intel to a new manufacturing process. A representative from Micron said on Monday that they will start manufacturing the 256GB drive in March 2009. The announcement from Micron has followed the Samsung’s announcement that it has started producing 256 solid-state drives.

According to Micron, its RealSSD C200 will read the data at 250MBps and write at 100MBps. While the Samsung claims that its drive will read the data at 220MBps and write at 200MBps.
The representative also added that the Micron is behind the schedule in producing the 256GB product which was scheduled to be launched for the fourth quarter of 2008.

The solid state drives have faster data reading speeds than the hard disk drives. The companies like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Toshiba are offering solid-state drives with their laptops. Intel has also announced that it will deliver its 160GB solid-state drive this quarter. HP’s EliteBook 2530p is equipped Intel manufactured 80GB solid-state drive.

In another news, Intel and Micron announced production of 32-gigabit NAND flash memory device which is jointly developed by them. The “32Gb monolithic die will give us the ability to cost-effectively produce over 300GB-capacity SSDs in standard 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch form factors,” Intel said Monday. The multilevel cell technology allows the manufacturers to make high capacity solid-state devices at lower costs. The Micron 256GB SSD will not be based on multilevel technology but the drives base on this technology will be come out in later 2009.

The companies “are ahead of schedule with 34nm NAND production” and expect their Lehi facility to have moved more than 50 percent of its capacity to 34nm by year’s end, according to a statement.

“The results from IMFT continue to exceed our expectations,” Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager, Intel NAND Solutions Group, said in a statement.